“We may or may not be watched,” said Rostnikov. “Our courier is being very cautious. I will find a taxi and go to the Sverdlovsk statue, wherever it may be. You take the suitcases and come in another taxi. Simply tell the driver to take you to the statue. Be ready. I shall …”
“Cold,” came a voice from behind Rostnikov, who watched Sasha move toward the station in search of a taxi.
“Cold, like heat, is relative,” Rostnikov said, as Jim Susman moved to his side swathed in a thick down parka and a hat with flaps that covered his ears. “We are not really into winter yet.”
“Cold enough for me,” said the little man. “You seen Bob?”
“A while ago,” said Rostnikov. “I think he said something about getting off the train here for a few days.”
The little man looked around. “Off, here? Why?”
“Interesting things to see,” said Rostnikov. “Churches, museum, countryside, mountains. Industrial. Very much like your Pittsburgh.”
“He didn’t say anything to me.”
“Sudden impulse,” said Rostnikov. “I am debarking here also. Business.”
“Guess it’ll be just me and the comic with the appetite,” said Susman, rocking from one foot to the other. “Tell you the truth, I don’t care much for his jokes.”
“If you are fortunate, you will not have to hear any more of them. Perhaps he too is getting off here. The regional food is unusual and Mr. Drovny has expressed a keen interest in fine cuisine.”
“I should be so lucky,” said Susman. “Say, listen, I’m getting back on the train.”
“One last question,” said Rostnikov.
Susman looked at the detective.
“Does the sun make a sound?”
“As a matter of fact,” Susman said, “it does.”
“I would like to hear that sound.”
“You can if you have an internet connection. Search for the Michelson Doppler Imager. There are sound files in something called AU format. The sun rings like a bell in a lot of frequencies and with distinct harmonics. Music.”
The little man took off his right glove with his teeth and extended his hand to Rostnikov, who took it.
“Good to meet you,” the American said through clenched teeth.
“And you,” said Rostnikov. “Enjoy your trip.” Susman put the glove back on and looked up. “Sun’s coming back out.”
Rostnikov looked up at the huge glowing orange sphere and nodded. Yes, there it was.
Holding the blue bag in front of him, Rostnikov made his way to the front of the train station, pushing through the crowd. Almost half the faces were Asian.
There was no real taxi line, just a scattering of cars facing in various directions with cabs of different drab greens and browns inching their way, miraculously avoiding a collision of fenders.
Sasha was nowhere in sight. Rostnikov did not bother to try to discover if he was being watched. He found a particularly faded brown cab with the virtue of being empty and opened the door.
“Hotel?” asked the driver, a short, bulldog-faced man wearing a Cleveland Indians baseball cap. The cartoon Indian on the cap grinned at the chief inspector.
“The Sverdlovsk statue,” Rostnikov said, shoving the duffel into the back seat and carefully getting in next to it.
“You do not want a hotel?” the driver said, looking back at his passenger,
“No, I wish to see the sights of your wondrous city.”
The driver gave him a look that conveyed serious doubts about his passenger’s intelligence or sanity.
“We can drive past the statue,” the driver tried. “Then out to the memorial, the one over the cellar where the czar and his family were murdered. Nice little wooden churchlike thing. For very little I can sell you a complete list of the items taken from the royal family before they were killed. Long list. I can, for a small extra charge, get you an exact copy of the crucifix one of the daughters wore around her neck. And if …”
A car horn was blaring behind the cab, demanding that he move.
“Sverdlovsk statue,” said Rostnikov.
The driver shrugged, turned around, adjusted his baseball cap, and began to make his way skillfully through the morass of vehicles.
“You like American baseball?” asked Rostnikov as they broke through the jam and onto a wide street.
“No,” said the driver. “Why? Oh, the hat? An American gave this to me last year. I drove him to the airport. Spoke terrible Russian but he was happy. He had just made a big deal and was going back to this Clevylund place where they have laughing Indians. He gave me a good tip and the hat. Why don’t I just drive around the statue and take you to …”
“The statue,” Rostnikov said.
That ended conversation. The ride through the town, which seemed to be engulfed in a low fog, took more than fifteen minutes. Rostnikov had once been to Frankfurt, Germany. Ekaterinburg reminded him of Frankfurt. Large office buildings of no distinction, apartment buildings huddled close together. Beyond the city, through the patches of fog or smog, he could see distant mountains and the hint of the sun.
“There it is,” said the driver, pulling into a large square.
The dark figure of a man stood atop what looked like a boulder mounted on a pedestal. Across the square stood an old, official-looking two-story building with a row of pillars before its entrance. There were people hurrying through the square, their breath clear as they moved, their hands plunged into their pockets, their heads and sometimes faces covered.
“Winter coming,” said the driver.
“Wait for me,” Rostnikov said, opening the door.
“Do not try to run away,” the driver said. “I will be watching.”
“I have one leg,” said Rostnikov. “Running for me is a distant childhood memory.”
“I will be watching,” said the driver, adjusting his cap.
Rostnikov made his way out of the cab and slowly, duffel in hand, moved toward the statue.
It was not that the chief inspector was impervious to the weather, but only the most extreme of temperatures, hot or cold, seemed to affect him. He did not see Sasha but he was sure he was somewhere nearby, watching.
Rostnikov moved toward the statue. A vendor s cart stood before the looming form of the assassin. Rostnikov moved to it and ordered a slice of pizza. The bearded man behind the cart, only his eyes showing behind his scarf, nodded, opened a metal lid, and came up with a round piece of baked dough covered with a thin layer of white cheese.
Rostnikov put the duffel between his legs and said, “Can you bring a slice to the cab driver over there?”
“Da” said the man.
Rostnikov paid him and began to eat as he watched the man hurriedly shuffle, small pizza in hand on a sheet of brown paper, toward the cab.
The pizza was tasteless and barely warm, but Rostnikov found himself hungry. He ate slowly as he moved back from the statue and looked up.
“History is made by the innocent and the guilty,” a woman’s voice said behind him.
“Guilt and innocence change with history,” said Rostnikov, finishing his pizza. He did not turn around.
“I’ll take the bag,” the woman said.
“And you have something for me,” the man said.
“First you,” she said.
He turned and found himself facing a slight, reasonably pretty young woman with pink cheeks and no makeup. Her coat was dark fur but quite old.
He handed her the bag. “Now, …” he said.
“First I check to be sure you have what you have promised,” she said, starting to unzip the bag she had been handed.
“Clothes,” the man said.
The woman looked up at him. Fury, anger, and then fear.
“I have given you a better gift than money. I have saved your life,” he said. “That is what I have for you.”
“You have?…”
“The man who was to give you the money was going to kill you as soon as you handed him what you are carrying. If I had not taken care of him, you would be lying on the ice here now, and he would be walking off with the money and your gift.”